Domino’s is offering users of its app rewards points every time they scan a pizza they’re eating, even if it comes from a competitor.
Ahead of US National Pizza Pie Day, Domino’s launched its new Points for Pies loyalty programme, which uses its app’s newly-embedded pizza identification feature.
Customers earn ten points for each pizza scanned, which they can do once per week. After earning sixty points (ie scanning six pizzas), customers can redeem a free medium two-topping Domino’s pizza.
“Instead of advertising during Sunday’s game [The Super Bowl], we decided to invest in a breakthrough programme that rewards everyone who loves pizza as much as we do,” said Art D’Elia, Domino’s senior vice president and chief brand officer. “We know everyone is asking themselves, ‘Did Domino’s just say they will award points for eating ANY pizza? Even from a competitor?’ You read that right; oh yes we did!”
The pizza identifier uses artificial intelligence-driven software to identify the image as pizza.
“This is the first time Domino’s is using AI technology like this,” said Dennis Maloney, Domino’s chief digital officer. “It will be running the pizza identification process and is already smart enough to identify all pizza, even if it is a homemade English muffin pizza, a pizza with a hotdog stuffed crust, or a high-end artisan pizza. It can even identify if it’s a dog’s squeaky pizza toy.”
The AI is not perfect and counter-culture pizza brand &pizza reacted quickly to the launch by setting up a website that mocks the fact that the Domino’s app can’t tell a real pizza from a fake one. The website includes a video of a simple pizza design (a yellow circle with red dots) that visitors can scan on Points for Pies.
Domino’s may well have anticipated that consumers would ‘game the system’, but given that even people scanning fake pizzas would, at a minimum, have to download the Domino’s app and engage with the brand six times over six weeks to earn a free pizza, we suspect they would be fairly comfortable with that.
Points expire six months after they are earned. The Points for Pies credits can be combined with the retailer’s traditional rewards points, which are earned every time a pizza is purchased.
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